


Carry you home

by hope_calaris



Category: Franklin & Bash
Genre: Gen, Headaches & Migraines, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-06
Updated: 2012-09-06
Packaged: 2017-11-13 16:32:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/505514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hope_calaris/pseuds/hope_calaris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jared has a migraine. Peter takes care of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carry you home

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** The moment unicorns are real, I make money with this.

It’s a big case. One that demands three lawyers from Infeld Daniels. One about bad stuff that’s not supposed to be in food you give your kids. One that makes them angry because some people being filthy rich doesn’t automatically entitle them to a free pass in life -- no matter what they think.

There’s so much about this case that sets Peter’s teeth on edge, but one thing he enjoys is how Jared basically destroys the CEO of Wholesome Food on the witness stand. It’s almost funny to see Harold Kumshaw slowly realize exactly how much he’d underestimated Jared. People tend to do that a lot with Jared, and it always amazes Peter. But then, not everyone gets a chicken sandwich thrown at them during their very first meeting with Jared Franklin. Maybe that’s the reason Peter never underrated Jared’s abilities to make somebody choke on their own words or actions, because quite obviously Jared wasn’t afraid of hitting Peter despite the height difference. He simply ignored that and waltzed into Peter’s life with a mixture of presumptuous cockiness and an admirable determination to be friends.

Even Karp looks like he has some newfound appreciation for Jared’s work in court, which is good because it’s already summer with September not too far away, and Peter would really like to stay with Infeld Daniels and they need every vote they can get. Jared, of course, doesn’t talk about it, but Peter knows he likes the firm as well. It also has the added bonus that he works for a big law firm like his dad always wanted him to without actually working for his dad -- not that Jared admits to that either. It’s just stuff Peter knows, like he knows Jared’s favorite food when the Dodgers lose.

“So, you admit that you knew of the study showing … um, showing … ” Peter frowns when Jared stumbles over his own words. It’s not like Jared to fumble for the next thing to say, he never had problems with that, not even when kids like Matthew Holland were about to punch him in the face. Peter looks over to the witness stand, but Jared’s face is turned to the CEO, and for once Peter’s willpower isn’t enough to get him to turn around. But he does have enough years spent in close proximity to Jared under his belt to know that there’s something seriously off with Jared’s balance. The shorter man is ever so slightly leaning against the witness’ stand. It’s nothing glaringly obvious, but Peter has had half a lifetime deciphering Jared’s body language, and when he sees Jared’s hand protectively curling around his stomach he sits up straighter in his chair.

“Oh shit,” he whispers and has to fight every instinct not to go over to Jared and lead him outside the court room right now.

“What is the matter?” Karp asks, his eyebrows raised.

“We need to ask for a continuance.”

“What?” Karp’s voice rings loud in the courtroom and all heads turn into their direction. Peter doesn’t pay attention to all the unfamiliar faces, though. He’s only interested in Jared, who uses the distraction to close his eyes for a moment. And if nothing else had tipped Peter off before, this gesture is all too familiar.

“Do you want to add anything, Mister Karp?” Judge Emerson asks with barely concealed annoyance, and Karp stammers his way through an apology. Peter only listens with half an ear, his stare fixed at Jared.

“How bad?” he asks silently, only his lips moving. For a moment it looks as if Jared wants to deny anything is wrong, but then his shoulders sag down a little bit. He doesn’t raise his hands, but he spreads seven fingers, and Peter curses quietly under his breath.

Seven is bad. Not as bad as a ten, because then Jared wouldn’t be standing anymore, but bad enough that he shouldn’t be in court, let alone questioning a key figure in this whole mess. Now that Peter sees Jared’s face he notices how pale he is. He nods in the direction of the door and doesn’t really care right now if it will mess up their case if they leave. Jared shakes his head cautiously, though, and Peter sighs. Stubborn bastard.

“You may continue, Mister Franklin,” Judge Emerson says once she’s done scolding at Karp, and Jared makes the mistake to move his head a bit too much and nods. For a moment, Peter is sure Jared is going to throw up right there and he’s already half out of his seat, before Jared takes a deep breath and looks a bit less green around the nose.

“Back to the study, then … ” he says and smiles at the jury, but it doesn’t reach his eyes and he doesn’t move around -- just stays still the entire time he exposes the CEO as a lying liar who lies. It’s so unlike Jared not to make grande gestures that Peter feels uneasy just watching him.

“You have to do the closing argument,” he quietly informs Karp. “I’m taking Jared home.” He half expects Karp to argue with him, because the closing argument is Peter’s job. He was supposed to charm the jury’s pants off, and Karp may be a brilliant lawyer, but he’s not brilliant with a jury and this case is big and important enough that he actually agreed with them on this point.

“Okay,” Karp says, and that’s it. No argument, no sarcasm, just a hint of worry in his voice. And if it weren’t for the fact that Jared had just said “That’s all, your Honor” Peter would have probably took a minute to thank Karp. Then Judge Emerson orders a lunch break before closing arguments, but Peter doesn’t really listen to her anymore because he’s already bolting out his chair and gets to Jared in an instant.

“You just can’t keep away,” Jared teases him but he sounds completely exhausted, and he more or less curls into Peter’s side and squeezes his eyes shut.

“You know me and my addiction to your effortlessly charm,” Peter replies, his arm protectively put around Jared’s shoulders. “C’mon, let’s get you home.” And then he hands Jared his sunglasses, which look ridiculously big on his face, but Jared sighs a bit in relief when he puts them on. Preemptively, Peter glares at anyone still in the room as if to dare mock Jared because he’s wearing sunglasses inside a building.

“M’stuff … ” Jared mumbles when Peter steers him towards the doors.

“Don’t worry, I have everything important, and Karp will bring the rest,” Peter reassures him, and Karp actually nods in agreement. Peter thinks that maybe he has to give the man his guitar back.

The way to their car is slow, and they have to stop more than once because Jared’s tripping over his own feet. It’s difficult to navigate the way when he’s basically walking blind, but Peter tries his best to protect him from closing doors and stairs, and they manage.

Finally, Jared slumps against the passenger side’s window, and Peter runs his thumb over the frown lines on Jared’s forehead.

“Still a seven?” he asks and mentally goes through their medicine cabinet back in the cave. Jared is not the best person to trust with his own migraine medication (because it’s oh so logical that it will go away if ignored long enough), but Peter always pays attention that they’re stocked and all the prescriptions are filled.

“More an eight now,” Jared answers truthfully (and it took some time and coaxing for him to be truthful about this, like finding him throwing up without having been part of a party wasn’t a dead giveaway most of the time), leaning into Peter’s touch with his eyes closed, and Peter’s heart constricts. He hates -- absolutely hates seeing Jared in pain, and this is so much worse because there’s absolutely nothing he can do about it. Sure, he can drive Jared home, get him his medication, but then he has to sit back and wait. And it’s never enough, and he hates waiting.

But he doesn’t say any of these thoughts aloud, because Jared doesn’t need them right now. “Okay, let’s get you back to the cave,” he says instead and starts the car.

They make it to their street before Peter has to stop the car because Jared has to empty the contents of his stomach on the curb. Peter winces in sympathy and slowly rubs circles into Jared’s bent back. Jared’s migraines don’t always come with nausea, which means that this one is one will suck even more than they do in general.

“Fuck,” Jared murmurs when he’s done and falls back against the seat.

“Just a few more minutes and we’ll get you some meds,” Peter says and hands him an uncapped bottle of water he’s fetched from the backseat. Jared takes it without opening his eyes and takes a few sips.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it, buddy,” Peter replies gently and drives them the rest of the way. Luckily, they have a garage, so they don’t need to walk the way to the house in broad daylight. Nonetheless, Jared cringes in the shadows and his hands are balled to fits. And it’s not only pain that’s showing, Peter knows, because Jared hates feeling like this, being dependent and miserable. It’s not like he wants the world to see him, and Peter guesses it’s also why he didn’t ask for a break back in court. Peter also bets Jared had seen some flashes of white before and just failed to mention it. Like experiencing an aura isn’t worth the trouble of interrupting a court case. They’ve fought about this before, and usually Jared is better about this now and lets Peter know when he feels one of the worse one’s coming (they have written that agreement down on a napkin somewhere in the cave). But apparently having a big case with Karp also means putting up a front and it’s not so much that Jared pretended to be fine for Karp’s and the jury’s sake, but that this entailed to violate Jared’s agreement with Peter is what really makes him furious on the inside. He doesn’t really care what Karp thinks about them or not, and he doesn’t even care about their case that much in this moment, not when it threatens Jared’s wellbeing.

“Hate this,” Jared whispers when Peter leads him inside, his hand curled around Jared’s elbow.

“I know,” Peter says, and he does. He’s seen Jared fighting his way through a school day despite the raging headache because they had an important test in fifth period, and he needed an excellent grade just to prove his dad wrong once again. Peter has listened to Jared cancel dates because the thought of popcorn and fast-cut movie scenes alone made him throw up.

They reach Jared’s room, and Peter throws the cover of the bed to the side before he makes Jared sit down. They don’t talk when he kneels down to remove Jared’s shoes, because Jared is still in that stupid headspace where he finds this part embarrassing. They’ve tried it with Jared doing it himself, but when the migraine is as bad as it is today it usually only ends up with more stomach content being emptied, and they really don’t need that.

“Lie down. I’ll be right back with the meds,” Peter tells him and draws the blanket up to Jared’s shoulders. He closes the curtains before he leaves the room and walks back into the living room to ransack the medicine cabinet.

“Shouldn’t you be in court?” It’s Carmen who looks up from her cup of coffee in the kitchen, a frown on her face.

“Migraine,” is all Peter offers as an explanation, but she understands in a second and fetches a glass of water.

“How bad?”

“He threw up on the way,” he says and grabs the right pills from the cabinet.

“I’ll tell Pindar to send out mails that there won’t be a Marguerita Monday tonight and no Tequilla Tuesday tomorrow,” she says and puts the filled glass on the kitchen table.

“Good idea. Thanks,” he tells her and smiles at her. He’d completely forgotten about their planned party, but she’s right -- the last thing Jared needs right now is a roaring bass and the chatter of a few dozen people outside his door.

“No problem. Tell him to get well soon.” She pats him on the shoulder and vanishes in search of Pindar. For a moment he looks after her, being grateful for having her and Pindar in their little family, and then he takes the glass of water and walks back into Jared’s room.

Jared is curled into a small ball on his bed when Peter gets back, and he looks tiny. Which shouldn’t be that surprising given the fact that Jared is, in fact, tiny, but most times Peter simply forgets that fact. Jared was never anything but his equal and apart from their very first meeting it never occurred to him to make fun of Jared’s shortness, simply because Jared’s sharp wit and intelligence make up for it more than enough.

“Carmen says you have to get well soon,” he says quietly and sits down on the edge of the mattress. Jared only grunts in response, and Peter runs a hand through Jared’s unruly hair. He tries not to show his worry too much, because Jared doesn’t like that. He can’t help it, though. It’s Jared, and that’s really all the explanation to it there is. He simply cannot sit around and not worry. Not that people like Janie or Leonard ever understood this. He’s heard the word co-dependency being used as some kind of curse more often than he cares to count. “I brought your meds. Think you can swallow them down with some water?”

Jared nods weakly and uncurls a bit to at least raise his head. Peter feeds him the pills and then holds the glass to his lips until Jared’s drained half of it. There’s nothing awkward or embarrassing about it this time around. On the one hand is Jared simply too exhausted and in too much pain to think about it, and Peter has never really cared about it to begin with. They’ve shared all the highs and all the lows in their lives, and they laughed all the gay jokes at their expense during college and Law School in the face. Really, Peter is so over second guessing how other people see their relationship, he doesn’t even bat an eyelash when Jared moves a bit to the side. It leaves enough room for Peter to join him in the bed, and he understands the request without words. Peter has read a lot about migraines since he first understood why Jared sometimes flinches away from loud noises and squeezes his eyes shut in the bright sunlight, and he knows that most people suffering from a migraine prefer the loneliness of a dark and silent room, but not Jared. Jared relaxes better when he can curl into Peter’s hip and listens to Peter typing on his Blackberry. It gets him to sleep faster than anything, and Peter doesn’t mind. In fact, he always feels better when he can keep Jared company during these phases, because then he can watch over him.

It’s the same this time. Peter climbs in bed with Jared, his back against the headboard and his Blackberry in his hands. There are some recent court decisions he’s wanted to catch up on anyway. Jared’s pressed against his right leg, his eyes closed and his breath deepening while Peter strokes absent-minded through his hair.

They will have to do some serious talking about not violating the napkin agreement, but only when Jared feels better. For now, Peter is content to just be here with him in the silence.  
  
 _\- fin_

 


End file.
